If going to space isn’t interesting enough, wait till you know about these stories that would make everyone wish they were astronauts or worked at NASA. There might be no aliens encountered or anything you see in a sci-fi movie but none the less they are every bit as interesting:
Skylab 4 Astronauts took a day off before Ferris Bueller
In November 1974, NASA launched a mission from its Skylab 4 space station. The entire crew was a trio of rookie astronauts named Ed Gibson, Gerry Carr, and Bill Pogue. It was an 84-day mission and since none of the astronauts had been on any space missions before, the work schedule started becoming a bit too much for them.
They started to struggle with working all day in space and couldn’t handle the stress so one day they decided to simply take a day off.
It was an unscheduled day off where they cut off all communication from NASA and just enjoyed the beautiful view of the earth and stars from space. As expected, NASA was not happy about this mini-rebellion and the crew never flew into space again.
Stressed out in space
It is understandable to be stressed out in space. After all, you are traveling in another entirely new environment with limited or restricted resources. In October 1968, NASA launched its Apollo 7 mission that carried three astronauts Walter Cunningham, Walter Schirra and Donn Eisele to space.
The mission almost became unbearable for all the astronauts as all of them caught a head cold that prevented them to follow through with the mission smoothly. This also caused the astronauts to have tensions between them while working.
During the landing, they also argued with the mission control about wearing their helmets. They wanted to blow their noses and feared they would burst their eardrums if they didn’t. After all that stress, they never flew again on any mission.
A teeny tiny accident in space
On May 5th, 1961 board the Freedom 7 space mission by Apollo, astronaut Alan Shepard was probably the first ever to pee in his own space suit. The weird incident was inevitable as the toilets were jammed and would take a while to restore.
Upon the instruction of NASA, he had to pee in his own space suit that resulted in the electronic sensors for his heart and respiration to be short-circuited. This was surely one small step for man and one giant embarrassing but inevitable situation for mankind.
Farting in space
If peeing in your spacesuit wasn’t bad enough, bring on the farts! Astronaut John Young couldn’t stop his farts while trying to walk on the moon. The gassy astronaut accidentally left his mic on and his experience was literally recorded by NASA permanently.
Everyone must have had a laugh about it at the space station in Houston when he said “I got the farts again. I got them again Charlie”. Fortunately, the mic wasn’t strong enough to capture the sound of his farts.
Just because it’s space doesn’t mean we stop being human.
